In the news

■ James Troglen, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Wetumpka, Ala., said members voted to return a $25,000 donation from Wind Creek Casinos to pay for repairs after a tornado damaged the church because the congregation doesn’t support gambling and thought it would be a conflict to keep the money.

■ Rick Snyder, the former governor of Michigan, is being criticized for his eleventh-hour pardon of a 54-year-old man for a felony drunken driving conviction after the man amassed four prior misdemeanor convictions and was described as a “career drunk driver” by prosecutors.

■ Michael Geddati, 20, expelled from Rhodes College in Memphis, pleaded guilty to downloading exams and changing grades to preserve his scholarship that required him to maintain a certain grade point average, prosecutors said.

■ Marcella Zoia, 19, turned herself in to Toronto police to face mischief and other charges after an online video showed her throwing two chairs off a 45th story balcony of a condo building to plummet down onto a busy downtown street, detectives said.

■ Aaron Davis, 35, of Long Branch, N.J., was indicted on animal-cruelty charges after authorities said he left a young pit bull mix in a cage to drown in a river as revenge against his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, an attempt that proved unsuccessful when a passer-by rescued the animal. ■ Troy Hickey, 24, of Stone Mountain, Ga., was charged with driving under the influence after Lilburn police said he ignored officers stopping traffic and drove into a funeral procession, striking the hearse and causing it to flip several times.

■ Rick West, mayor of Chesapeake, Va., said the town’s sudden infamy surrounding publicity for a never enforced 50-year-old law threatening jail time for teens caught trick-or treating has left him sleepless and prompted the City Council to debate dropping the jail penalty.

■ Cathy McAllister, while sorting books for a charity book-sale in Phoenix, found $4,000 in a chamber cut inside a donated copy of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, as well as an address label that enabled the charity to return the money.

■ Dan O’Neil, a candidate for mayor in Edmond, Okla., called it “sort of an awkward situation” after learning that he and former mayor Charles Lamb, who died in December, will be on an April 2 run-off election ballot after a Facebook campaign supporting Lamb’s candidacy.